For those of you here in Las Vegas, The Theory of Poker Applied to No-Limit by David Sklansky is now available at Gambler’s General Store/ GAMBLER'S BOOK CLUB in downtown Las Vegas. Their address is 727 S Main St, Las Vegas, NV 89101 and their phone number is (702) 382-9903.

We also have this title available in several special poker book promotions directly from Two Plus Two Publishing.

I woke up in the middle of choking to death again; though to be accurate, it was towards the end of the process--woke up right away in a white hot panic with black spots of permanent unconsciousness swooping in across both sides of my vision.

Calm yourself, was the first important step. My lungs were soaked, steeped in the things that belonged only in my stomach, and locked up tight. My air passage was blocked and burning with bile and hydrochloric acid. No, I don't have asthma. I have a drinking problem.

Spoiler:

Though, now that I think about it, is that inhaler thing any good? Maybe I'll try a hit sometime, just to see.

This was last Friday, just a few hours after I'd quit my office job of twelve years to take a shot at playing poker for a living out West in Nevada. This will not be my first shot at gambling for a living; although I have only tried something like this once before, many years ago.

Around the turn of the century I quit college most of the way through my senior year and I moved out to Las Vegas for 8 years. My experiences were somewhat of interest: rampant drunkenness, a stolen lab animal, solid card counting, North Korean meth, time spent with Mormons, advantage slot grinding, a cowardly pass on an FBI Most Wanted bounty, facing contempt of court charges, and dressing up as Albus Dumbledore. You can find that in my BBV thread.

Starting meditative relaxation can be problematic when you're dying from choking on your own puke. I sat up straight, blind from the black splotches that had slapped away the weak light of the kitchen stove. I dropped my shoulders, relaxed my chest and upper arms, and then, projecting calm with all my might, I tried my throat. I pictured my lungs and throat opening up just a tiny passage, for just a little air to go by--something to get me started. And they did, untethering just the smallest little rivulet of air, and it made the most terrifying sound as it went through. It always does.

Whatever you've heard from actors pretending to gasp after being choked, the reality is worse. At least no one was with me this time. When that's been the case, the other person has invariably freaked the **** out when they've heard my gasping and choking routine, which only adds the burden of myself having to reassure them through nodding and non-frantic gestures, so that they won't call 911, as I hate the idea of calling the cops.

April 13th of this year was 14 months without me having a drink. During that long stretch I had honestly forgotten why I'd quit. That's right, I had completely purged from my recall the years of nighttime memories of myself almost choking to death, this happening once or twice every couple of weeks on average. Now, the terrifying night wakeups didn't happen even once during the 14 dry months. But 3 weeks back into drinking--oh yeah--there was that thing, wasn't there?.

Now, there was something else I'd forgotten about. And that's the Double Tap. The Double Tap happens when I don't force my drunk and tired and traumatized self to remain awake for a good two or three hours after a choking incident. If I fall back asleep before then, I wake up choking to death all over again. And sure enough, that happened last Friday, and I had to save myself again.

So on Saturday I jumped back on the waggy, and Cinco de Mayo is now my new anniversary date, and that's really enough about drinking. I'm not here to write about that business. I should have been done with it; and now I am.

My flight leaves for Reno in a few hours, and I'll be out there for the next 3 weeks scouting out the live poker games in the city. If I like it, that's where I'm moving to.

It's just after 3:30AM, and I am fired up. I made a half pot of coffee, but I'll have to pour some of it out, as much as I love getting up early and sipping off a barrel of it in the morning. I hate being jittery while going through airport security, and knowing that makes me more nervous and the whole thing just feeds on itself.

I believe it was around June of 2001, coming back from Las Vegas to New England, I had a layover in Chicago and I ducked out to have a cigarette. When I was done I walked right back in, showing only my boarding pass at the single manned security aisle, and I was waved right through, but I set off the metal detector, and that was funny as I hadn't set it off in Las Vegas.

I searched my pockets and found a razor blade case cutter from my job at the bookstore. I'd forgotten that I had it in my pocket. "Case cutter." I announced to the bored security clerk. He took it, waved me through, and gave it back to me on the other side.

I've quit jobs before, always with the intention of never working again.

Trial 1 involved 6 weeks of me being curled up in the fetal position in my apartment until the money ran out and I had to get another ****ty job in retail.

Trial 2 was a card counting run out to Las Vegas with $400 behind. That one lasted for 8 years, but only 4 months of it involved pure card counting--2 years of it was working a steady job and counting cards on the side, and the rest of it was just me working and messing up my life.

For Trial 3, I was going to be an online Limit Poker wizard. I had around $3k for that. I didn't actually get my poker account set up until the money was almost gone. I got my old job back at the office.

Here we are in Trial 4, with $30k behind. The very early going was nice. Knowing my history with these trials, my old company actually paid for my flight out here to Reno, and added a rental car to boot, on the implied odds that I would fizzle out again and return to my oar. Also, they're really very nice people. Pick whatever narrative you like. They're both true. They booked me on American Airlines--AA baby.

I got to the airport at 6 AM for the 7:30 AM flight because this is America. The check-in desk was swamped; the line swung out way beyond the zigzag lanes. Instead, I juked over to a self-serve kiosk, and I had my ticket in hand and luggage stowed away within 3 minutes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. My old company had managed to score me priority luggage tags, so my bag would be one of the first on the conveyor out in Reno. Running well so far.

My seat was A29. I never suspected that 737s went back that far. No matter, it was a freebie. Now, this was my local airport, and I've flown out of there many times. Here I found the security line to be longer than I'd ever seen it: past the zigzag lanes by at least 150 yards. I estimated maybe a bit more than an hour to get to the front. This was going to be as tight as hell.

I stood in line for 3 minutes before I hit the outermost Ticket-checker. "Priority." She said to me, and pointed me towards the priority boarding line way off in the distance, the one with only about 8 people in it. I looked down at my ticket again: A29 was the gate; my seat was 5B. First Class. All the way. Round Trip.

Spoiler:

As I shed all of my stuff before the X-ray, another problem presented itself to me: I wasn't wearing underwear. I'd been up late doing laundry and I had packed all that underwear away. My pants were loose and I would have to take my belt off for the full body scan. I was going have my cock and balls out in front of everyone, at 6:30 in the morning.

How to play this one? Try to explain to the TSA folks what the deal was, and ask them if I could keep one arm down in the body scanner to hold my pants up? Probably not: Federal Safety Regulations are Federal Safety Regulations after all. Should I volunteer for extra groping and whatnot in order to avoid committing a lewd and lascivious act in the scanner booth? I'm sure I would've gotten my balls touched and bell-end sideswiped in that scenario. I settled on maybe trying to bend my knees, cock my hips in one direction and poop-squat a bit, and pray to the friction gods for my pants to stay up.

Just then, they opened up the old-style metal detector only gate and waved me through in that direction. No time to speculate how much metal was in my still-clasped belt buckle, I took the main chance and walked through with the belt on.

Let's go back to Saturday afternoon. We are at the Silver Legacy: the second largest poker room in Reno. There are two (2) shorthanded 1/3 tables running and zero (0) 3/5 tables running. Within two months of moving out here, I'll need to be putting in at least 30 hours per week at 2/5 or 3/5 if I'm going to make a proper go of this. I've been to two smaller rooms. One had a 3/6 limit game and a dinky $10 tournament, and that was it. One had a dinky $10 tournament only, no cash games. Saturday afternoon...

Reno seems to be a very nice town--a smallish city, really--of around 250,000 people. I took to it immediately. The locals here have been friendly and welcoming, so far without exception. I have a bit of the Aspie in me, and yet I've had nice conversations every day with a wide variety of folks. People have a genuine Western accent out here, and that sound is music to my ears for reasons that I can't articulate.

Downtown has a small river flowing through it: the Truckee. It flows fast, has a few outcrops and rapid-like features, and it appears to be clean. I saw a few kayakers paddling around on it, and I'm told that people like to ride down it on tubes in the Summer. Tubing through the center of a city sounds like a good time.

The whole riverfront area is nicely set up, and a lot small independent businesses are fixed downtown, making the area just funky enough to be cool, but not so funky that it's crossed over into twee hipsterness.

It's a nice town, and I can't stay.

Monday afternoon at Peppermill Casino: the largest poker room in Reno. There are two (2) shorthanded 1/2 tables and zero (0) 2/5 tables going. Today we find out that Nevada's hold on legal USA sports betting will soon be lost to any other state that wants to get in on it. This is not going to do the Reno gambling market any favors.

I don't want it locked. It might do better in LVL with the subtitle changed from Reno to Las Vegas, but I wouldn't mind it staying here. I see the sticky about how the sub grew away from gambling content, but this blog is about trying to make a new start later in life, and the gambling part is incidental.